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Friday, November 17, 2017

Forgotten Books: Lair of the Beast - John Peter Drummond

“Lair of the Beast”, from the Spring 1941 issue of JUNGLE
STORIES, may be the best Ki-Gor novel I’ve read so far. It seems to be the work
of yet another author who’s new to the series, although the style does remind
me a bit of “Ki-Gor—and the Paradise That Time Forgot”. [Minor spoilers ahead.]
In this one, Helene is taken captive by a gang of slavers who operate out of an
ancient Moorish castle in the middle of the jungle. Ki-Gor, badly wounded in a
battle with a vicious baboon, willingly becomes a prisoner because that’s the
only way he can get to Helene. Then he has to recuperate, find a way for both
of them to escape, and come up with a plan to destroy the evil slavers.

It won’t come as a surprise to anybody that he does so, but along the way the
author comes up with some nice twists and dangers and a good supporting
character in a somewhat shady Indian doctor who has thrown in with the slavers
but isn’t as evil as they are. And he does redeem himself to a certain extent.

Whoever the author behind the John Peter Drummond house-name is for this story,
he puts words together well and keeps this yarn moving along at a satisfying
pace. The bloody, harrowing battle at the end is well-done, but again, it might
not be exactly what the reader expects. A few things keep “Lair of the Beast”
from being the top-notch pulp adventure tale it might have been. There’s no
sign, not even a mention, of Ki-Gor’s sidekicks Tembu George and N’Geeso, and
I’ve grown fond of both of them. The plot is a little thin, and the story tends
to be bland in places, especially in the first half. A little more blood and
thunder might have helped, although to be fair, there’s plenty of that later
on. At one point, Ki-Gor does something really dumb. But he’s very clever later
on. This sort of inconsistency is another reason I think this may have been a
new author just getting his feet wet in the series.

All that said, I enjoyed “Lair of the Beast” quite a bit. It lacks the
over-the-top goofiness of the earliest Ki-Gor novels but is a considerable
improvement over the few right before it. I expect to continue enjoying this
series for a good long time.